Friday, May 26, 2006

Transformers Updates

Yesterday was a big news day for Transformers fans. The folks at Fun Publications have unveiled pictures of the first of this year's BotCon exclusives: pre-Beast Wars Optimus Primal. It is a recolor of the Cybertron figure Crumplezone with a new head added to make it look more like Primal. Have a look at the first ape version of Optimus Primal (there was a bat version that's mostly forgotten today) and judge for yourself whether or not the new exclusive captures the essence of the character.

Also released, but to members of the Transformers club only, were pictures of several toys in the upcoming "Classics" line to be sold in stores by the end of the year. These are updated versions of some of the best remembered characters in the original Transformers series of the 1980's. (UPDATE: Hasbro has released pictures of these [adding one more] to the general public)

One last bit that surfaced yesterday, albeit illegally (and therefore I won't provide a link to the source, as I don't wish to give the thief too much additional publicity) is what appears to be a test shot of upcoming BotCon exclusive pre-Beast Wars Rattrap. If this truly does represent the toy we'll get at the convention, Rattrap is a repaint of the Cybertron toy Ransack.

As is typical of the Transformers fandom, opinions vary wildly on all these toys. Some love them, some hate them, some love some of them, but hate others, and so on....

As for me, I'll look forward to adding some of these to my collection (and no doubt, in the case of at least some of the BotCon exclusives, I'll look forward to selling some to offset the costs of going to the convention in the first place!).